We’ve known the answer for at least 15 years. It’s just becoming wider known.

Eh I'm just surprised that so many (38% of them) think that they would

That's not true. The actual number for that question that said they would trust most/always is 23%.

You're just assuming there were only two options for that question and making up a number.

A majority of HN commenters believe the capitalist free market will shut down profitable products because it harms users.

This type of magical thinking is unfortunately endemic to humans

Yeah, I had to spend a bit of time inside to understand the process. I hope everyone knows about it now.

I mean, the answer is obviously "no."

Believe it or not, there was a time in the not-too-distant past where Big Tech meant Microsoft selling boxed copies of MS Office at retailers, in exchange for money. And if the KKK happened to buy Microsoft Office to do their word processing - well, it's no different to them buying a typewriter.

If the KKK wanted to put their stuff online, it certainly wouldn't be hosted on Microsoft's website, surrounded by Microsoft branding and ads that pay Microsoft - there were no "platforms", they'd have to make their own HTML and upload it to their own hosting provider.

And the nearest thing to "Social Media" was hundreds of tiny phpBB forums, IRC channels and suchlike, administered by genuine human beings, and for minimal reward. Censorship meant blocking mentions of viagra and cialis, which everyone knew were obvious spam. You can't put profits before users when there aren't any profits. And of course the guy with ops in the #north-west-london-anime IRC channel is going to look out for the users, they're his buddies.

Algorithmic news feeds hadn't been invented; the front page of Slashdot was whatever CmdrTaco and Hemos decided to post. Clickbait? Ragebait? Parody story mistaken for real? Dupe of a story from yesterday? They just wouldn't post it, simple.

Into this unbelievable environment came a tech company whose goal was to "organise the world's information" with the guiding principle "don't be evil" and such was the hope and optimism at the time, people treated such claims as literally true.

You're correct, but what a depressing summary. I've got much younger siblings in law (GenZ) and they don't even know what computing was like/could have been. They grew up with iPads and walled gardens. My brother in law thought it was like magic when I showed him how to use boolean operators in Google. I don't know if that even works anymore--it's all SEO crap now.

The technology is not really very interesting any longer, it's just a channel between behaviors. It is not as difficult to discern between wearing-a-chicken-suit-carrying-a-bazooka crazy, and underhanded scheming, and people having a hard time.

I saw pictures of young people dressing up and posing to re-create Soviet-era propaganda posters literally on a Chinese app called Little Red Book.

Hairyfeet, is that you?

And the answer, unless government regulations force them to, is always and forever no. In no world will a sociopathic CEO do anything to protect someone over gaining a single dollar more in profit.

It's worse than that, if we're being entirely realistic most (all?) companies would kill you if they could profit from it.

Proof? Cigarette companies, Dupont, and others were happy to do that.